Breakthrough In Fuels Management With Fuelworx At Nova Scotia Power

A diversified regional energy company operating in North Eastern North America, Nova Scotia Power (NSP) has been the region’s main electricity supplier for more than 80 years and is the largest subsidiary of Emera Inc. Operating in a regulated environment, the electric utility supplies 97% of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity to 460,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the province of Nova Scotia. The company manages $2.4 billion worth of generation, transmission and distribution assets and produces over 13 thousand gigawatt hours of electricity each year, with an installed capacity of 2,293 megawatts. Five thermal plants are responsible for 80% of the generation. Coal is the primary source of fuel for four of these plants, which utilizes over 3 million tons of coal annually.

In the 25 years since converting oil-fired generating units to coal-fired units and building new coal-fired plants, NSP sourced coal locally from a federally owned and operated mine. After experiencing ongoing production problems, the federal government mandated the closing of the mine. This resulted in the need for NSP to implement a multi-source fuel procurement strategy, and for the first time in the company’s history, NSP began importing both coal and petroleum coke from international markets. Concurrently, the company expanded investments in technology at its plants to improve performance and achieve strategic goals – such as reducing emissions of sulphur dioxide 50 percent by the year 2010.

Procuring, managing, and accounting for a fuel mix of coal and petroleum coke from international markets was initially supported by a multitude of spreadsheets. The complexity of the procurement processes and transport combined with the inherent limitations of spreadsheets had potential for inaccurate accounting entries. The company decided to deploy a fuels management system to collect and consolidate energy supply transactions for accurate accounting information through predictable, automated processes, reduce the risk of errors through improved controls, enhance the organizations ability to provide consistent and timely fuel information to regulators and interveners during rate hearings, and enable Nova Scotia Power to adapt quickly and efficiently to changes in fuel information requirements for company growth and environmental reporting.

SunGard Energy Softworx was selected by NSP to manage its fuel accounting processes. Real time data regarding consumption expense, consumption quantities and mmtbu, as well as inventory transfers and adjustments, was readily integrated with the company’s existing Oracle®-based financial system. Fuelworx is utilized across the organization. Plants create transfer shipments, load and unload them and enter consumption data. The fuel accounting group manages base data, quality price adjustments, invoices and payables, adjustments, month end close, end user training, and procedures development. The back office accounting staff manages the upload to Oracle Financials. As a result, month-end close has significantly improved.